Monday, June 25, 2012

MetService has issued a Severe Weather Warning for strong winds on Tuesday morning. Northwesterly gales are expected to develop tonight, with 120km/h gusts for a time (in the 9 hours from 1am to 10am) on Tuesday morning.

Winds of this strength can affect trees, powerlines, insecure structures and make driving hazardous.

I thought I'd placed things where the wind wasn't going to catch them for Saturday, but I found the lid for my BBQ halfway across the lawn, and my wheelie bin had been blown over. I might get some bungy cords for keeping the lid on the BBQ, and tie my bin to something.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Recently we asked residents in Ascot Park, Aotea, Waitangirua and parts of Cannons Creek and Whitby to go easy on water use for a few days, or risk running out.

And here's why!

Stemhead Lane reservoir which usually supplies water to those areas is currently empty, as it is undergoing earthquake strengthening. A bit of an inconvenience now to help prevent a major inconvenience in an earthquake.

Ascot Park reservoir is now feeding the suburbs normally serviced by the Stemhead Lane reservoir, as well as its usual area. Initially, the demand on water from that reservoir meant that it was emptying faster than Greater Wellington Regional Council's bulk water network could refill it, so some areas may have experienced a drop in pressure, or loss of water.

Some of this problem has been relieved by reducing the bulk supply to the other cities slightly, and feeding that extra into Porirua's network, but please continue to reduce your usage during the peak use times of 5pm-8pm and 6am-9am to help maintain the supply.

Work on the reservoir is scheduled to be completed in about a fortnight, so normal service should resume then.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Unions are moving to add quake-safe workplaces to collective agreements - meaning that workers could go on strike if employers refuse to strengthen unsafe buildings. This will definitely be an interesting development to follow.